


Sound and Shape

by imadra_blue



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Canon - Video Game, Character Study, Drama, Gen, New Beginnings, One Shot, POV Third Person Limited, Post-Canon, Worldbuilding, temporary disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 00:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1623008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadra_blue/pseuds/imadra_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A world without magic is unbearable to a woman whose being was half formed of magic.  Her name means "earth" and implies the world in which we live.  So the question is: does magic make the world, or does the world make magic?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sound and Shape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [palaceintheair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaceintheair/gifts).



> Story Notes: Set shortly after Final Fantasy VI's ending.
> 
> Beta Reader: Many thanks to FireEye for the sage advice. All mistakes that remain are my own.
> 
> Prompt from Cumuluscastle:  
>  _Request 3_  
>  _Fandom(s): Final Fantasy VI_  
>  _Request:_  
>  _Terra. freedom, magic, loss. Does Terra ever regret the loss of magic? Does she mourn the loss of the espers? This should take place after the game. It might include one of the orphan children's drawings of Terra as an esper. Alternatively, explore the relationship between loss of control and Terra's esper form. Why does Terra identify more with her human side? What could help her to overcome her fear of her own power?_

...

Terra woke up to utter silence. There was no rustling of the sheets on her bed as she moved, no sound of the wind drifting in through her open window. There wasn't even a ringing in her ears. There was just… nothing. Terra stumbled out of her bed, though the room wavered and rocked. Leo, her cat, jumped off the bed and opened his mouth in protest, but she still heard nothing. She grabbed the windowsill and leaned out, wondering if anyone could hear her, if she shouted for help. But it was still dark outside, and the wind bore the bite of night's chill. Terra sat by the window and rested her face against the lacquered wood, breathing deeply, unable to hear her own heartbeat. When she pressed a hand to her chest, she could feel the thump. It was the only sign that she was still alive.

When she woke again, she could hear the birds chirping. Sunlight poured through her open window, and Katarin frowned at her. "Terra. Terra, are you all right?"

Terra lifted her head and studied the young girl. The baby gurgled from the sling on Katarin's back, and she could hear the children outside, shouting at each other to be first to breakfast. She could hear the breeze wafting in, sending her green curtains fluttering. Terra took in a breath.

"It happened again, didn't it?" Katarin asked.

Terra could only nod in response, wondering how things had changed so much that Katarin now cared for _her_. Ever since she'd returned from Kefka's Tower, she'd suffered from these dizzying bouts of senselessness. Freedom had proven to be overwhelming.

"It will be all right, Terra. We'll figure this out." Katarin patted her on the back, and withdrew.

Terra rose, alone, feeling separated from the world, though she walked through it, leaving her footprints in the dust outside her house. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be a piece of magicite.

…

"Mama! Mama!"

Terra looked up from her bowl of peepers stew. Poual stood before her, her brown face scrunched up in what seemed to be concern. She clutched a large piece of paper in her purple and white-stained hands. She was always painting and coloring things, reminding Terra of Relm, though with far less refinement. Only recently had Terra been able to redirect Poual's artistic urges onto paper, instead of the walls.

"Yes, Poual?"

"I made something for you."

Terra smiled and turned around to fully face Poual. She wasn't terribly interested in the stew, in any case. They'd had peepers stew every night for the last week, ever since she and Duane had caught a small horde of them trying to nest near Mobliz.

"What's that?" Terra asked, smiling. Poual was one of the youngest children. She didn't remember anything before the Light of Judgment. As far as she knew, her only family was Terra and the other orphans of Mobliz.

"It's you!" Poual flipped the picture around and held it up.

Terra stared at the picture of her Esper form, rough sketchy lines, fierce eyes, wild lavender hair, and she heard herself draw in a breath once, but could not hear herself exhale. She did not hear what Poual asked next. The world spun, she stood up, and then she fell down.

Terra would have sworn someone had cast X-Zone on her, if only magic still existed.

…

Her hearing came and went, as did her sense of place. Terra felt wretchedly sick, as if on Setzer's airship during a violent storm. She lay in her bed, but she didn't feel it. She didn't hear it. When Katarin came to check on her, she couldn't feel the girl's hands any more than she could hear the girl's voice. The only thing Terra could keep down was the cool water that Katarin brought her. Terra slept, but she had nightmares. She couldn't remember most of them, but the fear left its imprint on her. She was alone, always alone. She dreamed of the Espers, trapped alone in their magicite, their corpses reduced to Kefka's tools. Terra wept for them in her dreams, for there was no one else to mourn them. No one else remembered. No one else cared.

When she didn't sleep, she heard snatches of conversation between Katarin and Duane when her hearing worked, and she heard nothing when it didn't.

"I don't—"

"—do we do?"

"Call—"

Days passed. Weeks, perhaps. Terra had no conception of time. She had no concept of anything. She would climb out of her bed sometimes, despite how violently the room seemed to shake, but she wouldn't get far before she'd wake up in the bed again.

Then there was Celes, blond hair trailing down her shoulders, over her arms, pale and white and as cool as a winter day. Terra didn't know how she got there, or why, but Celes somehow made the room stop moving. Terra could feel Celes's hands, calloused from constant sword use, and they grounded her in the moment. Celes nodded once, then pulled her up, helping Terra stumble from her bed.

Celes's hand gripped her elbow, Terra walked from her house, past her children. She could see Poual, smiling brightly, teeth missing, curly hair bobbing the wind. The children gathered around, hugging Terra. She could not hear their words, but she knew they were telling her goodbye. Katarin kissed her cheek, and Duane gripped her hand, and then Celes led her onto Setzer's waiting airship.

Terra leaned against the railing, wind streaming in her hair, and watched her home recede into the distance as the airship flew away.

…

They brought her to Thamasa.

Terra didn't quite understand what was happening, but it didn't matter. Nothing else made sense, so why should this? She let Celes guide her towards the sickly forest far from the village, where Relm stood, waiting. Dark trees shot out from piles of broken rocks, still twisted from Kefka's poison. The grass was the color of disease, and the earth was near as red as fresh spilt blood. A blank canvas, a brush, and a small jar of water lay near Relm. Strago sat behind Relm, all bundled up in colorful scarves, his arms trembling. His eyes were red and watery, his face sallow, but he nodded at Terra. The wind brushed past them strong enough to send Terra's skirts fluttering about her legs. But she heard nothing.

When Celes let her go, Terra thought she understood. The four of them knew magic in ways the others that had accompanied them didn't. Magic had been part of their beings, and all their existences had defied logic. Terra stepped towards Relm, then drew up short a few feet from her. Relm had grown into a young woman, her blond curls framing her face, her eyes deep with a wisdom greater than she was. She was near as tall as Terra now.

Relm sat down in the dirt and stared up at Terra. She did not try to speak, none of them had. Words were useless to Terra now. She could only understand what was done, not what was said. After a moment, Terra sat down across from Relm. The earth felt warm, somehow, despite the cool breeze. Relm took some of the red earth and mixed it with water. She began painting on the canvas in shades of red. There was no form, no meaning. The mud offered only random swirls, yet Relm's art always spoke of a power beyond simple magic.

Closing her eyes, keenly aware of Celes's, Strago's, and Relm's presences, Terra laid her palms flat on the ground. She could feel a pulse of life in it, almost a heartbeat. There was something so familiar to it, like the shape of her father's magicite in her hands, and yearning thrummed beneath her fingertips. Terra knew at once this area was what remained of the Cave of Espers. This red earth was where her father's people had last stood, before she had blindly led them to their doom. She could feel the golden likenesses of the three goddesses infused in the soil. Likenesses, not actualities, yet somehow they persisted in this cold dead world.

Feeling the power of her father's people flame once again through her veins, Terra opened her eyes and cupped the red earth in her hands. A small green blossom arose from the center, brighter than anything in their surroundings. Terra's hearing returned as if it had never left. She heard the wind rustling through the nearby trees, setting the leaves dancing. She could hear Celes absently humming an Imperial marching tune. She could hear Strago's raspy breaths, each one defying his inevitable death. And she could hear Relm speaking to her.

"They were the Warring Triad's likenesses. It's not like real magic. But it's magic you make real," Relm explained, and showed Terra her painting. There, on the canvas, painted in shades of red earth, was Terra, the distinction between her Esper form and her human form blurred in the smear of mud. It looked much like Poual's drawing, but rendered with a more adult grace. Terra was as much Esper as she was human. She could not cease being one without ceasing to be the other. So long as she existed, magic existed. So long as the likeness of magic, the thought of magic, persisted, so did magic.

"I guess you can't really destroy magic," Terra mused, staring down at the small bud in her hands. She gently lowered it back to the earth, so it could grow. "It's in everything."

"All we did is change its shape when we destroyed the goddesses." Relm covered Terra's hands with her own muddy ones, smearing red over Terra's fingers. "You were sick because you had lost your shape. But now you found it again, haven't you?"

Terra smiled. "Yes, I think I have. Thank you." She rose to her feet, ready to go home again, to assure her children that all was well, all would be well.

At her feet, the earth split open to reveal new life, green and fresh, and it _thrived_.

_End._


End file.
